The dream of putting on your very own wrestling show is only ever that – a dream – but for two guys who one day decided to just go for it have made it a reality. In December, brothers Jonathon and Simon Kay will be putting on four events across the UK featuring some big names including “The American Nightmare” Cody, Flip Gordon, Kay Lee Ray, Viper, and Joe Hendry to name a few. Not only that, but the events will include live recordings of Something to Wrestle With Bruce Pritchard, and an after party will Hall of Famer Charles Wright aka The Godfather and Papa Shango.

I was lucky enough to find out more from both Director Jonathon Kay and Events Director about Fight Forever Wrestling, including the difficulties involved with putting on such a show, how you even start getting wrestlers to appear at the events, and obviously, who their best three wrestlers are of all time.

Why did you decide to put on an event as big as this?

J – Really we were having a conversation about it half-jokingly, and as we got to the end of the conversation we couldn’t think of a good reason not to. I don’t know whether we were trying to talk ourselves into it or talk ourselves out

S – We both realised we both wanted to do it and nothing was holding us back

It’s crazy, really when you think about it

S – We kind of have to pinch ourselves to check that it’s real

J – Sometimes we just wake up in the middle of the night and realise what we’re doing, and that’s a bit scary

J – When we first had the conversation we would speculate who we were going to get, and in the beginning we were imagineering really. We didn’t know who we were going to get, but originally we wrote down about 20 targets, wasn’t it Simon?

S – Yeah, and at that point we didn’t know how much wrestlers charged per appearance, so that’s how new to it we really were

J – We had a rough idea, but it was a guesstimate

S – Yeah, it was a guesstimate

How did you go about booking them? What’s that like?

S – A number of the British guys we found quite easy to get in touch with because they’re so active on Twitter and Facebook, so we were able to direct message them. For the international guys it was really just a case of finding out who their agent was and sending out a few emails. It was actually more straightforward than we anticipated

J – It didn’t take more than a couple of days to get in contact with them. Once we knew who we wanted to speak to, we put together a proposal that we were comfortable with figures. After a bit of negotiation we managed to get the people we wanted to get. Obviously there were people on the list that we wanted to get, but we’ll be looking to future tours so we’ll be looking to those people to get for them. It’s impossible budget wise, but also schedule wise to get everyone we wanted at the same time

What was the inspiration behind the name?

J – The list of wrestlers we had was nothing in comparison to the list of names

S – We were originally North Star Wrestling

J – For our day job, we’re in a marketing company called North Star Digital, so everything we do we fight forever at North Star Digital, which we do at the minute. One of the names initially was North Star Wrestling, but we didn’t like the sound of it so we changed it to something we thought would at least be chantable

What’s been the biggest challenge to date?

S – We’ve had quite a few challenges, but booking venues has been the biggest one

J – Venues was harder than wrestlers

S – It’s getting people to get back to us with prices, and getting the right dates that are available. Because it’s a four-day tour, it’s quite difficult to put together really. You’ve got to make sure you’re not going back on yourselves throughout the country, and making sure the cities that you visit have got the size we want with the availability on the right day. That was a bit of a headache, but we got there

S – We were delighted with the ones we have, but we were struggling – particularly around the midlands we were struggling for a little while

Something to Wrestle With Bruce Pritchard is a fantastic podcast. Was that easy to sort out for the event?

J – Yes, surprisingly. We wanted to do something different. There’re a lot of good promotions putting on good wrestling shows, but we wanted to put on something different which is why we’ve gone for the Prichard show, the wrestling show, and the Godfather’s and Papa Shango’s after show party as well. We just wanted it to be a complete experience. Plus, we really like the podcast. We really liked the live show, and we think there’s an audience for it in the UK

Let’s talk wrestling. If you had to pick three wrestlers from the history books, who would they be?

J – That’s tough, that’s tough

S – Go on, Jon. You go first

J – OK, I’d have to go Shawn Michaels, Ric Flair, and The Undertaker

S – I think I’d say Shawn Michaels too. He was always my favourite from that era – 95 and 96. I remember being a big Shawn Michaels fan. Earlier than that I was an Ultimate Warrior fan when I was younger. I never really liked Hulk Hogan

J – Yeah, I was always Warrior over Hogan

See, I was always Hogan

J – I was in the beginning, but then it was Warrior, and then The Undertaker

S – Yeah, it was so good when he would come in. I think my third would be The Rock

J – Austin as well

Austin just created such a legendary era

S – We didn’t have cable until 1999, so I was only watching the VHS’s with Austin in the PPVs. 2000 was my favourite too

J – Yeah, when The Rock was on top it was just out of this world

I’m so thankful the WWE Network so I can go back and watch them all. I was watching all the In You House PPVs with Owen and Vader

J – Oh yeah. I was a big fan of Bret too

What about now? What do you keep up to date with now? There’s so much out there are there any particular promotions you watch religiously or is it a bit of everything?

J – It is a bit of everything. I really like NXT – I think it’s fantastic

S – I’ll watch anything in NXT. We keep up to date with WWE and watch most of the main programming. We keep our eye on New Japan, Ring of Honor, and of course the British scene, like Progress and Rev Pro

J – World of Sport as well

Yeah, that starts soon

J – It does, yeah. We’ve got quite a few guys from World of Sport so it’ll be interesting to see how they’re booked on that series as well

They’ve got some great talent booked on there

S – Yeah, guys like Joe Hendry and Will Ospreay

You mentioned earlier about future plans, would you like to do this if it’s successful, which it seems like it’s going that way?

J – Yeah, definitely. I don’t think we want to be in a place where we’re running shows for shows sake. When we’re putting on a show we want it to be something memorable, and that’s what we’re aiming for – a fan experience

You can find out more about Fight Forever Wrestling on their website, which includes the story of how it came to be, the roster for the events, and more. It’s going to be one hell of a tour, so go get your tickets now.

Chris White loves to write, and is a huge fan of wrestling of all kinds. He supports the Boston Celtics, listens to hip hop, and wishes Ric Flair was his granddad. He's a pretty cool guy, just ask his mum.